Base of Operations:
His wife's mansion, somewhere on the North American seacoast

First Appearance:
Amazing Detective Cases#12/5 (May, 1952)

Powers/Abilities:
A student and practitioner
of black magic, Ralph Halley could apparently transform himself into
"different things", including a mouse (see comments).

History:

(Amazing Detective Cases#12/5 (fb)
- BTS) - The past of Ralph Halley is unknown, but at some point he
married the wealthy Helen, then he began to acquire and study a number
of arcane books on the occult, and eventually learned a spell to
transform himself. Helen became concerned that her husband had been
driven mad from his knowledge of sorcery, and she feared that he would
try to kill her so he could inherit her money.

(Amazing Detective Cases#12/5
(fb)) - One night, Helen saw a mouse--she was certain that it was
Ralph, because there were no mice in her home, and Ralph knew she was
deathly afraid of the rodents. The mouse chased her throughout her
mansion and trapped her against the terrace guardrail (with only the
pounding surf on the rocks far below); just then, a
servant--Matthews--came into the room, and the mouse scampered
away.

(Amazing Detective Cases#12/5) -
Helen went to Dr. Springer's office just as the doctor was leaving for
the day. She told him about Ralph practicing black magic and changing
himself into a mouse; but as he listened to Helen's outlandish story,
Dr. Springer could only humor her--obviously, the poor woman was
deranged. The angry Ralph came storming into the office and scolded his
wife. After apologizing to Springer for his outburst, Ralph explained
that Helen was not supposed to leave the house and that she was under a
doctor's care for a bad case of nerves. Then Ralph's attention was
diverted to Springer's usually gentle office cat, who fiercely growled
at Ralph Halley--Springer had never seen his cat react to anyone like that
before; Ralph brutally swatted the feline with his cane. Controlling
his temper (with great difficulty), Springer told Ralph that striking
his pet was quite unnecessary, but Ralph only explained that he
couldn't stand cats. When the Halleys left his office, Springer was
bothered by how frightened Helen appeared, and was concerned that
her domineering husband would probably institutionalize her. Later,
Springer phoned Helen to check on her welfare, and she assured him
she would be alright because she finally thought of a way to protect
herself. Late that night, Springer was awakened by a phone call from
Lieutenant Hanscom of the police department. Hanscom told him Mrs.
Halley requested that he come over to her house immediately because Mr.
Halley was dead. Springer dressed and hurriedly drove to the Halley
home and found the mansion full of police. After seeing Ralph's dead
body, Springer asked how it had happened, and Hanscom informed him that
something delivered a terrific blow to Ralph Halley's neck and broke
it; but it was a complete mystery as to how this happened: No weapon
was found, the servants all had the night off, and there was no way
that someone as small as Mrs. Halley could have broken the neck of
anyone as big and strong as her husband. As the investigation
continued, Springer began looking through some of the books in Halley's
library, all of which dealt with the subject of black magic. Springer
thumbed through one of the tomes and noticed a spell: "How To Change
Into Animal Forms". Then Springer's attention was drawn to the
policeman who was still examining Halley's body, because the cop found
something curious under the corpse--a sprung Ketchum mouse-trap. Dr.
Springer and the policemen could only look on in dumbfounded
silence...

Helen only said to Dr. Springer
that Ralph could "change himself into
different things"--she was never specific about any of the
transformations (other than a mouse) that he may have attempted; for
that matter, Ralph was never actually shown changing into a mouse--this
was only implied in the story by the book of spells, the sprung
mouse-trap by his body, and the manner of his death.
But I'm guessing Ralph's powers were rather limited (or else he was
pretty stoopid!); otherwise, why didn't he just change himself into
something larger--a lion, a tiger, or a rabid dog? If he wanted to
scare his wife to death, then surely she'd have been just as frightened
by any of those (if not more so) as she would have been by a
mouse.

It was never explained exactly
what kind of doctor Springer was, what
his specialty was, or why Helen Halley consulted him--I'm guessing
maybe he was some kind of paranormal investigator (like Rex
Lane)
(...which would explain why Mrs. H went to him for help). Is it just
me, or does anyone else think Doc Springer looks a little like Dr.
Stephen Strange?

When Dr. Springer was looking
through Halley's book collection, I
noticed one of the titles--although it was faded and obscured, it
appeared to be a copy of the Necronomicon.

The petite and wealthy wife of
Ralph Halley, she was deathly afraid of mice. She became alarmed when
her husband began practicing black magic and learned how to transform
himself into a mouse. She feared that Ralph was trying to scare her to
death, so she went to Dr. Springer and told him of her plight, but
Ralph tracked her to Springer's office and escorted her back home.
Springer later phoned Helen to check up on her welfare, and she assured
him that she would be alright because she had thought of a perfect way to
protect herself.

Dr. Springer was leaving his
office for the
day when Helen Halley entered and began telling him a fantastic story
of how her husband Ralph was practicing black magic. She claimed Ralph
changed himself into a mouse and was trying to scare her to death.
Later that night, Springer was called out to the Halley home after
Ralph was found dead. While looking through Ralph's collection of
occult books, Springer found a spell for changing oneself into animal
form, and he began to have second thoughts on Mrs. Halley's allegations.